


Feels More Like A Gremory

by airdeari



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A Whole Lotta Bulls--t, Bulls--t represents over one percent of the words in this fic, Caspar nods along and his single brain cell rattles around in his head, Gen, I say bulls--t more often than I say gremory, Linhardt infodump-rants about the gender binary and the patriarchy, Nonbinary Linhardt von Hevring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25325746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari
Summary: “I’m conducting research,” Linhardt says with his head buried in a pillow and his body immobilized by blankets. “In essence, if you didn’t have a body to tell you one way or another, what would make you so convinced you were a man?”Caspar opens his mouth, then closes it again, a small number of times. The only things he can point to that don’t take form in his physical self, true as they may feel in his heart, are things he knows are stereotypes, so they feel like the wrong answers.“Exactly,” Linhardt declares after enough seconds of silence.[Day 2 of FE Trans Week: Class Change & Support]
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez & Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52
Collections: Fire Emblem Trans Week 2020!





	Feels More Like A Gremory

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while watching Hamilton on Disney+ and I won’t apologize except for the fact that I paid Disney seven dollars, to see H*milton—okay, actually, yes, I will apologize. I’m sorry, and I’m cancelling my subscription now.
> 
> I’m not apologizing for the pun, is the thing.

“It’s bullshit,” Linhardt says when he collapses on Caspar’s bed after walking in uninvited.

Well, okay, invited, because Caspar gave him a blanket invitation to walk in whenever he liked, if he could even make it upstairs. He was one of the first nobles to volunteer to take a first-floor room, on account of his chronic fatigue, but his insomnia often makes it easier to sleep on the quieter second story. It’s more isolated from the outside world, its sounds, and its changes in climate.

“What’s bullshit?” Caspar asks after Linhardt doesn’t see the point in elaborating.

“As it stands now, if I want to advance to a master class, I’m required to excel in _some_ sort of non-magical skill,” he complains, rolling himself in the comforter inside-out because he couldn’t bother to get under it. “I need horseback riding and a little bit of lance for Dark Knight or Holy Knight, or I become a master swordsman to work my way up to a Mortal Savant. That’s it.”

“What about the other one Dorothea’s doing? Gr… uh, Grandma-ly…”

“Gremory.”

Caspar snaps his fingers. “That one.”

“That’s the whole problem.” Linhardt completes his transformation into an inside-out cake-roll by planting his face in Caspar’s pillow. “It’s the perfect class for me. Requires mastery of both reason and faith.”

“So?” Caspar asks.

The pillow muffles Linhardt’s voice but does not dull his sassy tone. “It’s female-exclusive, Caspar.”

“Oh. Huh.”

Caspar pushes himself up out of the last rep of his tricep dips over his otherwise unused desk chair and sits himself in it for probably the first time all month. He looks at the long noodle of his best friend wrapped in a blanket on his bed, a master of magic in any sense other than his class rank, a genius by any standard except the one he’s being held to.

“That’s bullshit,” Caspar decides.

“That’s what I said,” says Linhardt.

“No, but I mean it, it’s bullshit,” Caspar insists. “War Master is supposed to be a male-only class, but they’re letting Hilda take the exam in my cohort-thingy. So you should be able to take the Grammarly—uh, the Grem—”

Linhardt rolls over to face the wall before Caspar can finish. “Oh, no, that’s different,” he yawns. “False equivalence in a majority-patriarchal society. A woman becoming a War Master is a victory for women’s rights. A man becoming a Gremory is male invasion of a space specifically carved out for women for protection from oppression. Even if they _would_ let me, ethically and morally speaking, I absolutely shouldn’t become a _male Gremory_.” The words slide out in disgust.

In all honesty, Caspar barely understands a lick of what Linhardt is postulating. It’s with a lot of both ignorance and bias that he replies, “Okay, now _that_ sounds like bullshit.”

“Hmm.” Linhardt flops back away from the wall just enough that he can pry one eye open, look through its corner, and see Caspar sitting in the chair across the room. “You’re not seeing the bigger picture here, are you, Caspar? What part of it is the real bullshit.”

Caspar folds his arms. “It sounds like it’s _all_ bullshit.”

“Sure, in a sense. But you’re missing the fertilizer for the turds.”

“The _what_?”

“Well, I can’t very well say ‘the forest for the trees’ when we’ve specifically been talking about bullshit, can I?”

“You just did!”

After throwing his arms outwards, Caspar instinctively flops back against a chair that does not take kindly to being flopped back against. It wobbles and rears onto its hind legs before Caspar can slam it back down onto all fours. In spite, he twists himself to sit sideways in the chair, his back against one arm rest and his legs dangling over the other, and it’s just as much flop as he wanted in the first place, _so there_.

“Alright, so what am I missing?” Caspar asks with a bit of impatience. Linhardt always winds around the point like he’s unraveling a ball of yarn by pulling out the thread inch by inch to get to the center, occasionally pausing to make sure that the string he’s freed so far doesn’t get tangled back in on itself. When there’s something to get in the center, Caspar prefers to cut straight through instead of taking the long way around.

If you’ve never cut through a ball of yarn before with scissors before, it is a sensory experience without equal. All the tension releases and the yarn puffs out in your hand with a soft, colorful explosion.

Incidentally, Caspar was not on speaking terms with Bernadetta until a day after he bought her a new skein of yarn in the same color, and he is still banned from her arts & crafts hours.

Anyway.

“Let’s put it this way,” Linhardt says. “Caspar, assuming that the two of you pass your upcoming exams, what would make you a male War Master, and what would make Hilda a female one?”

Caspar furrows his brow. His eyes drop instinctively to his lap (as much as it can be called a lap when it’s been rotated forty-five degrees off of its y-axis). “I’m guessing you’re looking for a different answer than the, uh, obvious one,” he says.

“That would be more helpful, yes,” replies Linhardt.

“Helpful?” Caspar repeats.

“I’m conducting research,” Linhardt says with his head buried in a pillow and his body immobilized by blankets. “In essence, if you didn’t have a body to tell you one way or another, what would make you so convinced you were a man?”

Caspar opens his mouth, then closes it again, a small number of times. The only things he can point to that don’t take form in his physical self, true as they may feel in his heart, are things he knows are stereotypes, so they feel like the wrong answers.

“Exactly,” Linhardt declares after enough seconds of silence. “The whole thing’s bullshit.”

“So you just think it’s bullshit you can’t be a Gremory because you think _gender itself_ is bullshit,” Caspar realizes.

“To put it simply,” Linhardt says. “I’m sure it’s not entirely bullshit. It’s just bullshit to me, personally.”

Caspar doesn’t get it, but he knows better than to say so. He just nods along. That makes Linhardt keep talking, and there’s something magical in the way he talks when he’s found something he really cares about for once.

“Do you know the origin of the word _Gremory_?” Linhardt asks.

“Nope,” Caspar answers.

“It’s the name of a folkloric demon, described in several grimoires and mythological tales,” Linhardt explains, lifting the pillow from his face to be better heard. He hugs it to his chest. “Evidently, he is referred to as male across most, if not all sources, yet he is also consistently described as appearing in the form of a beautiful woman. I think it would only be traditional of me to take the title of Gremory in that way. A male person taking a form presumed to be female.”

“They’ll let you do it if they let Hilda do War Master,” Caspar tells him again.

“But I’ll only do it if they don’t call me a male Gremory,” Linhardt says. “I’m not going to be a male Gremory. I’m going to be a person who assumes a female identity for the sake of something that calls to me more than manhood ever did.”

Caspar furrows his brow. “Wait, so… you want to be a woman?”

Linhardt is silent for a while after that. “It’s not _that_ simple,” he says eventually. “But if we’re calling the whole ‘gender’ farce bullshit anyway, I certainly wouldn’t want to be a man in my entirety. That wouldn’t just be dishonest, it would be _boring_.” He rolls over to face Caspar fully, half-unrolled from the blankets encasing him. “Would you?”

Caspar shrugs. “I mean, it’s what I always thought of myself as, so… yeah?” He kicks his legs as he looks down at himself. “Yeah. I like being a man just fine, anyways.”

Linhardt hums, then folds back into the blanket for more thought. “Interesting,” he says slowly. “That’s formative research. I’ll be taking that into consideration, if you don’t mind.”

“Uh… sure?”

“Thank you,” says Linhardt.

“So does that mean you’re gonna try out for the, uh, the Gremmy-thingy?” Caspar asks.

Linhardt hums again. “Yes,” he says at last. “At this point, I believe, it’s undoubted. Very interesting.”

“Awesome!” Caspar says with a pump of his fist. “It’s what you deserve, y’know?”

Linhardt turns his head Caspar’s way again. A lazy smile slips onto his face. “Perhaps it is,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Linhardt’s gender is “56th demon from hell” and I think that’s very gay rights of him!


End file.
